A House committee has approved a three-year moratorium on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas from shale deposits.
The original version of the bill would have banned “fracking,” the common name for the surface drilling method that uses a combination of water and chemicals to extract natural gas from shale. Under the proposal, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources would have been prohibited from issuing a permit to extract natural gas.
Rep. David Deen, D-Westminster, chairs the House Committee on Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources that approved the bill. He said one reason for imposing a moratorium rather than an outright ban was to allow time for the Agency of Natural Resources to revise its regulations on underground injection wells and permit the Environmental Protection Agency to complete studies on the potential harms of the practice.
VTDigger.com
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